Thanks to my new, mini, toy-like laptop I can sit and type the hours away whilst I buzz 39,000 feet in the sky between London Luton and Vienna. In a stroke of Bearder luck, I bagged the luxurious exit-isle window seat meaning I can see the world, exit first if we do a Hudson-style river landing and have more leg room than a midget in a limousine.

I’m leaving the UK again destination Hungary, but, like most things in my life it’s not been a straightforward affair. Not selling my house, a falling pound and insufficient savings had co-conspired to postpone my second semester and look set to put the great Eddy masterplan back by a whole year. However, luck was on my side and with the help, support and encouragement of my ISES schoolmasters – I am back on target.

Oddly, as the plane took off over the grey and white, snow covered flatness that is England I felt slightly uncomfortable leaving. It’s odd because I’ve left more times than I can remember in the last five years and I’ve been nervous, excited, intrigued and even impatient but never sad. I can’t really work out why, maybe I’m getting old and going soft but I suspect it’s more a combination of disappointment for not catching up with too many people whilst I was back, concern that I’m giving up regular paid work again to be an experience rich but cash poor student and also a mild sense that I’m leaving the UK when things aren’t quite right. OK, I know that I’m not gonna make the blindest bit of difference to the onset of recession, economic decline or full blown snow storm but still. Maybe, the 5am early start and the book i’m reading (‘Bluebird’ by Vesna Maric) are playing with my head. Chapter five tells the sad but fascinating story of a man called Dragan (not dragon) and a beautiful woman who had never left her house.

“Her mother, aware of her immense beauty and herself betrayed by ‘vegabond men’, as she called them was worried that she may attract the wrong sort of suitor and swore her daughter to never leave the house until she was married”

After her mother died she was so used to being inside and so scared of being outside that she carried on as before. Dragan, a poet and factory manager had been having a love affair with her but, with the onset of war in Bosnia he and the others had to flee the town. Unable to persuade the woman who never left the house to leave to save her own life, Dragan left with the others. The house is believed to have been flattened in the early stages of the three year war.

As I’m lucky enough to have left my house, left my home town and indeed left my country more time in the past 24 hours than that woman did in her lifetime – I dedicate this rambling post to her.

OK, well, my stomach is telling me it’s time for an over priced EasyJet easyTea and easyTwix and the battery indicator is telling me to shutdown or loose my work… until later and form 39,000 feet I’m saying goodbye.

Eddy

PS, With a few, exciting exceptions, I’m gonna be back in Koszeg (Hungary) from now until June You’re all welcome to visit…. Szia

PPS, the Bearder luck didn’t last long after writing the above… I missed the train by 4 minutes in Vienna adding 2 hours to my trip and the bus by 30 seconds in Szombathely adding another (cold) 40 minutes. 17 hours from point to point is pretty poor…